Description Another cellular-automata-inspired painting. I started with a simulation of water waves on a surface, and it made a really nice chaotic blob. I ended up calling the painting Alien Taxi, because Im imagining that those two odd looking people are unsure about whether they should get into it. The people were initially part of one big face, but then I split it in two to make things livelier. I like that lower face, how worried it looks, it makes me laugh.

Born in Kentucky in 1946, he studied mathematics, earning a Ph. D. in the theory of infinite sets. He worked first as mathematics professor, then as a computer science professor, coming to rest in Silicon Valley, where he now paints, photographs, and writes novels full time.

Rucker has published over 30 books, mostly speculative fiction. A founder of the cyberpunk school of literature, Rucker also writes in a realistic/fantastic style known as transrealism. Rucker took up painting in 1999 while doing research for his historical novel about the life of Peter Bruegel, As Above, So Below. He often paints pictures as a way of imagining the worlds of his novels such as The Hacker and Ants, The Hollow Earth, Frek and the Elixir and Mathematicians in Love. and Postsingular.